The world according to Monsanto : pollution, corruption, and

322 the world according to monsantovision. The opacity of the regulatory process feeds rejection by consumers inthe United States because they don’t have the right to choose what they eat,but also in Europe, as the example of MON 863 corn shows.”The Flaws of the Regulatory System:The Example of MON 863 CornWhile the French government announced in January 2008 that it wasimplementing the “safeguard clause” for MON 810 corn, suspending thecultivation of this Monsanto Bt variety until the European Union has reconsideredits authorization, I would like to recall the history of MON 863,a close cousin of MON 810. MON 863 contains a toxin (Cry3Bb1) intendedto protect it against the corn root worm, while MON 810 has beenengineered (Cry1Ab) to resist infestation by the corn borer.* The MON 863affair is a perfect illustration of the worrisome way, to put it mildly, in whichGMOs are regulated in Europe.In August 2002, Monsanto filed a request for marketing approval of MON863 with the German authorities, submitting a technical file including a toxicologicalstudy conducted on rats for twenty-nine days. In conformity withEuropean regulations, the authorities examined the data supplied by Monsantoand transmitted a negative opinion to the Brussels Commission, onthe grounds that the GMO contained a marker for resistance to an antibiotic,which infringed directive 2001/18 strongly advising against its use. Thecommission was then required to distribute the file to the member states tosolicit their opinions, which would be examined by the European FoodSafety Authority (EFSA), the European scientific committee charged withevaluating the food safety of GMOs.In France, the Commission du Génie Biomoléculaire (CGB) received thefile in June 2003. Five months later, on October 28, 2003, the CGB issuedan unfavorable opinion, not because of the presence of the antibiotic resistancemarker, but because, as Hervé Kempf explained in Le Monde, it was“very troubled by the deformities observed in a sample of rats fed with 863corn.” 3 “What struck me in this case was the number of anomalies,” ex-*According to Greenpeace, the corn root worm, a very harmful insect, was introduced into Europeduring the Balkan War; it is said to have come in American air force planes.